Over the centuries Buddhist pilgrims who journeyed to the holiest shrines in Western China obeyed a famous dictum: "Go up to Emei Shan, go down to Baoding Shan." Emei stands as one of Buddhism's four sacred mountains, while Baoding Shan (Precious Mountain) at Dazu remains as one of China's four great centers of Buddhist sculpture.

Baoding Shan possesses the best of the sacred carvings in Dazu, containing about 10,000 of the over 50,000 religious sculptures scattered throughout this highland district. Compared with the three other major rock carvings in China (those at Dunhuang, Luoyang, and Datong), the Dazu specimens are of the most recent composition and arranged in the most compact arena for viewing. This concentration of thousands of carved images within a natural amphitheater enhances the visual intensity of Dazu. Dazu's carvings are also the most realistic of the great holy sculptures, the least abstract and rigid, and the most earthy and human, with the broadest social context.

In 1984 we invested in an electronics factory in Chongqing, China. When we visited our factory in 1984 the factory took us on a trip to Dazu. We took these pictures on that trip in 1984.